A Symphony of Cicadas

by Crissi Langwell

  Edna dropped the cat to the floor and walked into the kitchen to get us each a cookie. Muffin sat where she landed, licking herself and eyeing me with a wary look as if she were the wounded one, and not me. Mr. Tinkles, on the other hand, was lying on his side in a patch of sun. He was either sleeping or dead. I was tempted to walk over and nudge him with my shoe to see which one was true, but decided too much of my foot was exposed in my saltwater sandals to risk another swipe at my skin.

  “Here you two go,” Edna said, placing a napkin with a single cookie on the countertop for each of us. She also poured us each a small glass of milk. I followed Sara to the chairs that lined the countertop and she helped me to get up on a tall barstool before climbing onto her own. I picked up the cookie with eager anticipation, taking a mental note how many chocolate chips there were in it. And then I bit down. Rather than a moist, delicious dessert, the cookie crumbled like sawdust in my mouth. It tasted just as bland as sawdust, as well.

  “It’s my mother’s recipe,” Edna boasted with pride.

  “Did your mother make them?” I asked the elderly lady, receiving a sharp kick from Sara under the counter. But I really was curious, wondering if they had been made a long time ago to be this horrible. I had never tasted a bad cookie before, always spoiled by my mother’s baking skills. In my mind, it just wasn’t possible for a cookie to taste anything but delicious. While Sara placed her cookie on the countertop and took a delicate sip of her milk, I kept nibbling at the edges of my cookie, trying to find the one spot that would taste delicious. It was no use; I kept coming away with mouthfuls of sawdust.

  “Oh dear, no. I made those months ago and just pulled them out of the freezer. That way they always taste fresh.”

  “I think my mother wants us to come home,” Sara blurted out, taking my hand and pulling me to come off the barstool.

  “So soon? Well then, the kitties and I will be here the next time you come to visit,” Edna said, leading us through the pink entryway into the fresh air outside. Both of us took a deep breath in once the door had closed, replacing the stench of the house that filled our lungs with the smell of sunshine and fresh grass on the wind. Sara looked at me.

  “Never again,” she said in her seven-year-old wisdom. I nodded in solemn agreement.

  ****

  Edna had just finished telling John her version of our childhood when Sara spotted them on the couch.

  “Oh Edna,” she gushed. “My mother has been eyeing your gladiolas and wondering how you got them to bloom so well. She says it’s how much you water them, but I bet you do something special to make them so pretty. Do you mind sharing your secret with her?” Edna’s eyes widened as she got up with determination.

  “Everyone knows it’s what you do with the fertilizer. Honestly Sara, I could teach you a thing or two in your little flower business.” She made a beeline for my mother across the room. I watched with amusement as my mom, who had invited the old lady, looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Leave it to my mom to invite someone none of us cared for just to prove she was the perfect hostess. A few moments later, she shot Sara a dirty look across the room as Edna waved her arms while giving a rapid lesson to our mother.

  “She’s either describing how to compost the soil, or how to swim across the Pacific while being chased by rabid sharks,” John said. Sara covered her mouth in silent laughter.

  “That woman is bat-shit crazy. You know that she had her cats stuffed when they died?” Sara giggled. “They now stand at attention on her kitchen counter. Creepiest thing ever!” She handed John a plate that held the quiche my mother only made for company, along with various appetizers that threatened to cover it. “Sorry, I didn’t know what you wanted so I got you one of everything.” He nodded, putting a cracker with a small shrimp on it in his mouth. He took a long time to chew his food before swallowing, and then moved a few of the other pieces of food around on the plate before setting it on his lap.

  “I don’t really have much of an appetite these days,” he apologized. “But maybe I’ll want to eat this in a little bit.”

  “It’s okay,” Sara said. “What about Sam?” she asked. They both looked at him on the couch where he had been pretending to sleep. Sara’s younger daughter, Lily, was trying to wake Sam up without actually telling him to. As she placed a few of her toys on his chest, he inhaled, raising his chest in deep exaggeration to knock them off and not give up the ruse. Again, she picked up all the toys and lined them up on his chest once more. Sara started to get up to lead her away, but John stopped her.

  “He’s a big boy,” he whispered to her. “Besides, this is more interesting than anything else going on here, even more than Edna describing her cats.” In a final act of frustration, Lily grabbed one of her tiny dolls and slammed it on Sam’s chest. He sat up with a start at the action, glaring at John and Sara who were doing their very best to hide their laughter from the mourning room. Conceding defeat, he swung his feet over the side of the couch and listened as Lily garbled the rules of play to him, handing him a doll so they could have a tea party. He glanced sideways at his father, his face a determined expression of bitterness before he gave in to an amused smirk. He then turned back to Lily and followed her directions on how to drink tea from a plastic cup with proper etiquette.

  “You know, he really is a good kid,” Sara said in all seriousness. John nodded in agreement.

  “He has a good heart. Your mom tells me it’s just his age that makes him so hard to reach lately,” he said. “But sometimes I don’t think I know what I’m doing with him. He can be so cold and distant at times, and is almost more of a stranger than he is my son.”

  “I know I was a rotten kid to my parents around his age. That’s about when I became serious in my discovery of boys. About the same time, my parents turned into rambling idiots. They didn’t fully regain their intelligence until I moved away,” Sara laughed.

  “I think that gives me about four more years until I can claim to know anything about raising a kid, right?” John joked.

  “Something like that,” Sara said. “Has he found a girlfriend yet?”

  “Not sure. At least, he won’t tell me. I’ve heard him speaking to someone who I think is a girl when he’s on his videogame headset. Normally he’s loud and crass when he’s on the system. But when he’s speaking to her, he talks much kinder and has more patience. However, when I asked him about it he just shrugged me off.”

  “He’ll come around,” Sara promised. “After all, he’s going to want to know what to do once things get serious.”

  “Maybe,” John said, lacking conviction in his voice. “He acts like he has everything all figured out, and I’m just in his way. He’s been like this since his mom and I split up. In fact, he didn’t start breaking down the walls until I met Rachel. But now that she’s...” he broke off as tears entered his eyes once again.

  “It’s okay,” Sara whispered.

  “It’s not, though,” John whispered back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her, without them. It’s like everything suddenly made sense when I met Rachel and Joey. Everything seemed to just fall into place. And now that they’re gone, I’m not sure anything will ever make sense again.” He rubbed at his eyes, feigning tiredness to conceal the tears he was wiping away. Sara remained silent, her hand resting on his knee in a gesture of compassion. “I mean, what if he never talks again? Rachel had this way of skirting around his stubborn ego, breaking through to reach the Sam no one else got to see. We became a real family, and she was the one who helped to bridge the gap that had been widening before she and Joey walked into our lives.”

  “But Rachel always described Sam as a kid she had difficulty getting to know,” Sara noted, curiosity in her eyes.

  It was as if she were mirroring my thoughts. When I had first moved in, Sam spent most of his days shut off in his room. Despite the fact that John and I had been dating for three years before I died, I didn’t know the kid very well. It took some time and lot
s of patience before he began opening his door and joining in on the conversation with us. However, it always seemed like there was this invisible barrier he kept in place to bar me from getting too close. As a result, I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him to keep from breaking the already thin layers of our complicated relationship. It was an exhausting song and dance we played, and I would try to hide my sense of relief whenever it was time for him to visit his mother, knowing that life would feel effortless without him in the house for a few days.

  “She definitely felt at odds with Sam,” John admitted. “But I don’t think she understood just how unreachable he was before she moved in. We lived more like roommates than father and son. There were days he barely said two words to me. And many of those days, I decided it was easier to just let it be than to fight him to hold an actual conversation with me. But Rachel, she had this way of not taking his silence as an answer, showing him she cared through her consistent efforts to reach him. Maybe it was just because she wasn’t jaded by the negativity he’s held onto for years. But through her persistence, she managed to change his habits from isolating himself into becoming a real part of this new family we were creating.” He paused, taking a deep breath in. “But now...” he trailed off, his voice wavering. “It’s only been a few days since they died, but it seems like all the good Rachel did since she and Joey moved in with us a year ago left with them.”

  “I know,” Sara murmured. “It’s still so hard to believe they’re both gone. The other night I missed Rachel so bad I actually listened to an old message she’d left on my voicemail at least a dozen times just to hear the sound of her voice. And Joey…” Sara wiped at her eyes, being careful to dab at the corners to ensure what was left of her eye makeup would remain in place. She looked up at John and smiled. “Did you know that I was there in the room when he was born?” John shook his head. I had never gone into much detail with him about those early days, pockets of the hurtful memories sometimes even hidden from me. “Tony had since taken off, and Rachel had moved in with our parents. She asked both me and our mom to be there with her when she went into labor with Joey. I got to see Joey’s first breath of air in this world, hear his beautiful cry, see him open his eyes for the first time. I remember him looking right at me as the doctor held him up, and I instantly fell in love. I had never known that about children, that they have this ability to make you fall in love with them at first sight.” She took in a deep breath, looking over at her kids playing across the room. “It was Joey who gave me the desire to be a mother. Before him, I didn’t think I ever wanted children. But seeing him for the first time, and then being there with Rachel as he took his first steps, said his first words, loved me as Auntie Sara…He was just such an amazing kid.”

  John put his arm around her. She smiled up at him and patted his knee.

  “I’m sorry. If I’m having such a hard time coping with losing both of them, I can’t even imagine what you’re going through,” she sympathized.

  “Oh, I think you can,” he said, placing his hand on hers and squeezing. “How about the flower shop? Is business going to be okay?” he asked her.

  “I closed up shop for the next week. I had to transfer some of our orders to our competition, which just kills me. But there’s been a lot of understanding from our clients about the situation. It’s going to be really strange doing this without Rachel, though. I know I’m eventually going to have to hire another body for the floor, and I’m really dreading it. No one can replace my sister.” She was having a hard time fighting the tears, a few escaping before she could catch them with her tissue.

  “Sweetie,” Kevin interrupted, “I think Lily has reached her breaking point. Think we can start heading home?” Across the room, Lily was sitting near her toys, rubbing her eyes. Sam had found interest in the food table and had abandoned her in favor of piling his plate with whatever was within his reach. Lily, in the meantime, was trying to conduct her tea party on her own. We all watched as Megan came over to try and help, only to be shouted at by Lily for touching her toys.

  “Mine, Megan!” Lily squealed, pulling her dolls out of reach and spilling the whole tea party to the floor. Her face began to contort, twisting into a silent scream of protest before letting out the siren’s howl.

  “Uh, yeah. I think it’s time,” Sara chuckled, sniffing as she shifted from mourning and went into mom-mode. She went over and scooped up Lily from the floor while Kevin picked up all the toys that had spread out across the room. Right on cue, Lily stopped crying, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and rested her head on Sara’s shoulder. She let out a little shudder of a hiccup from her crying spell, and kept her eyes wide open as she surveyed the room and everyone in it from the comfort of her mother’s arms.

  “John, if you need anything man, we’re here for you,” Kevin said, extending his hand. John shook it before ending with a semi-embrace.

  I giggled from the sidelines, remembering John’s explanation of a Man Hug, the handshake that transitions into an embrace meant to last only a second or two. “There are rules to these things,” he’d told me.

  Many of the guests took Sara’s and Kevin’s departure as their invitation to leave as well. My mother stood close to the door, ever the hostess, as she greeted the guests one last time and thanked them for stopping by.

  John put on his game face as he was approached by guests before they departed. I could sense how much he didn’t want to be there as he gave a distant smile towards anyone who wanted to tell him how sorry they were.

  “Are you going to be all right driving home?” my mother asked after the last guest had left. “We have a guest room if you would rather stay the night.”

  “No, I’ll be okay. It’s only a forty-five minute drive. Besides, I think Sam would rather sleep in his own bed,” John said as he gave my mother a hug goodbye.

  “John, you know you’re family,” my father said as he extended his hand. “I know you didn’t get a chance to marry my daughter, but in my book...” he trailed off. “You two are welcome in our home anytime you’d like,” my father told John as he tried to keep himself composed.

  John had told me once that my parents felt a lot like they were his own parents. Both of his parents had died a decade earlier. His father had suffered a sudden heart attack in his early sixties. His mother followed soon after, her mental capacity going downhill fast before passing away in her sleep. But of the scattered details I’d learned about them, I knew they had never been prominent figures in John’s adult life. So while I sometimes regarded my parents’ active involvement in my life as intrusive, John regarded it with admiration, embracing it to fill the void his parents had left in his life.

  John embraced my father, forgetting the rules to his Man Hug in what seemed like a final goodbye.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. He walked out the door with Sam right behind. My mother pet Sam’s hair and gave him a hug. Sam returned the embrace, but appeared awkward in the obligated gesture. I could see his body relax with relief when they parted ways, bounding down the steps to join his dad at the car. And the two of them drove away, leaving the little neighborhood in Sonoma, to head back to the loneliness of their overcrowded city.

  Seven

  With a steady hand, I drew a thin line of black above my upper lash. I did this on both sides before enhancing the widened look of my eyes with a layer of mascara. My golden hair was already curled, and I pinned it back from my face and neck in an elaborate series of flowers and sparkling clips. After I touched my lips with a bit of rose stain, I stepped back from the mirror over my bathroom sink and inspected my work. I couldn’t help but smile with pride, seeing a vision in front of me that had never looked lovelier. My skin was radiant, the lines I used to hide nowhere to be found in the face that smiled back at me. My hair shone like never before. Even my teeth appeared whiter against the dusty rose color of my mouth.

  On the bed was a large white garment bag, one that had been cinched up tight in my closet for months.
Beside it lay a white bodice and slip. I stepped into the slip, pulling it up over my narrow hips and placing the slit in the front. I slipped the bodice over my head and leaned forward so I could pull the ribbons tight in the back. The motion was so awkward I wished my sister were there to help me. My fingers didn’t reach as far as I would have liked, but somehow I was able to get it closed without any assistance. Another glance in the mirror revealed an image out of a boudoir photo, my close fitting undergarments tightening my physique, revealing a voluptuous version of what lay underneath.

  I unzipped the garment bag with care, placing my hand inside to save the dress from catching on the zipper. Pulling the bag aside, the dress I had been waiting for so long to wear shone back at me. I ran my hand over the soft fabric, admiring the creamy white material layered with small roses and lace. Lifting it off the bed, I stepped into the top of the gown and gathered it up to my breast. I pulled the ribbon tight in the back, taking the time to tighten each strand one by one until there was no more give.

  Stepping into a pair of delicate white shoes that rested beside the bed, I took one last glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, and was taken aback by the vision of perfection that stared back at me. In all my months of detailing every aspect of our celebration, I had been sure I’d never achieve the classic look of a young bride often associated with weddings. And here she was, her innocence staring at me from the full-length mirror of my closet door, ready to be given away.

  “Is this really helping?” a voice asked behind me.

  “Does it matter?” I answered, not even flinching at the unexpected presence that had joined me. I turned around to see Jane, a girl I once knew in my college years, sitting on the bed next to the empty garment bag.

  I met Jane in our freshman year of college. She lived a few doors down from my dorm room. Her roommate was best friends with my roommate, Lisa, which meant Jane would sometimes hang around with us. I didn’t mind the girl, except that she had a little bit of a wild streak to her. This both captivated me and scared the shit out of me. Having grown up in a small town, I had been raised to keep a low profile and never do anything that would end up in the community’s gossip mill. Jane seemed to have grown up in a much different environment, as she sought attention from anyone willing to be her audience. And when it came to seeking thrills, she had no fear whatsoever. She was not only a willing participant in a lifestyle of hard partying and risk taking, she was also known to push limits beyond the comfort zone of those around her.